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For its anniversary, the German Chemical Society (GDCh) has dug up a box of photos of chemists from their archive. Among those photographed are GDCh Presidents, Nobel Prize winners, and many other well-known chemists.

For the next 11 weeks, we will uncover one of the photographs each Monday and invite you to guess who is pictured. The answer will be published the following Friday. From all correct entries, 12 winners will be selected at random at the WiFo 2017, the largest GDCh biannual conference. You can increase your chances by participating in more than one quiz.

Photo 5: Fritz Haber

1868 – 1934, German chemist, husband of Clara Immerwahr, won 1918 Nobel Prize for his invention of the Haber–Bosch process. First director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry, later renamed The Fritz Haber Institute. During the First World War, involved in the development of poison gas, which earned him a lot of criticism from fellow scientists.

Photo 4: Irene Joliot-Curie

1897 – 1956, French scientist, daughter of Marie and Pierre Curie, wife of Frédéric Joliot-Curie, won 1935 Nobel Prize with her husband for their discovery of artificial radioactivity. She pioneered research into radium nuclei, was involved in promoting women’s education, and served on the World Peace Council.

Photo 3: Wilhelm Karl Klemm

1896 – 1985, German chemist, known for work in the field of inorganic and physical chemistry, e.g., he refined the ideas of Eduard Zintl on the structure of intermetallic connections (Zintl-Klemm concept). He wrote textbooks on inorganic chemistry, which in his day were standard books for every chemist, was President of the GDCh from 1952 – 1953, and President of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) from 1965 – 1967, and co-editor of the journal Zeitschrift für anorganische und allgemeine Chemie. The GDCh awards the Wilhelm Klemm Prize.

Photo 2: Gerhard Ertl

German physicist, born 1936, who won 2007 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his studies of chemical processes on solid surfaces, and is known, e.g., for determining the detailed molecular mechanisms of the catalytic synthesis of ammonia over iron (Haber Bosch process) and the catalytic oxidation of carbon monoxide over platinum (catalytic converter).

Photo 1: Karl Waldemar Ziegler

1898 – 1973, German chemist, won 1963 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Giulio Natta for work on polymers, known for work involving free-radicals, many-membered rings, organometallic compounds, and development of Ziegler–Natta catalyst.

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